- Today's Word
Cantankerous
[kan-TANG-ker-us]
Definition
- (adjective) Someone who is bad-tempered, argumentative, and difficult to deal with. A cantankerous person is often grumpy, irritable, and prone to complaining or disagreeing with others.
Example
The cantankerous old man on the corner was known for shouting at children who dared to step on his lawn and arguing with anyone who tried to engage him in conversation.
Fun Fact
The origin of “cantankerous” is uncertain, but it’s believed to have emerged in the late 18th century. Some linguists suggest it might be related to the Middle English word “contack,” meaning “quarrel,” or possibly derived from a combination of the words “cank” (to cackle like a goose) and “rancorous.” Regardless of its exact origins, it has become a colorful and expressive way to describe someone with a consistently difficult personality.
(adjective) Devoid of intelligence, substance, or meaningful content; empty in a way that is made worse by the appearance of fullness.
The panel discussion was so vacuous — four articulate people saying nothing of substance for ninety minutes — that the audience left feeling vaguely cheated by their own attention.
Vacuous derives from the Latin vacuus, meaning “empty” or “void,” rooted in vacare — “to be empty” or “to be free.” The same root gives us vacuum, vacant, vacation — all words built around the idea of emptiness or absence. It entered English in the 17th century, initially used in scientific contexts to describe a literal vacuum before acquiring its cutting figurative sense of a mind or expression that contains nothing worth engaging with.